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Prohibition: 

With  the  People 
Q  Behind  It 


By  John  G.  Woolley 


• 


COPYRIGHT 
BY  THE  AMERICAN   ISSUE   PUBLISHING  CO. 


LL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Prohibition: 

With  the  People 

Behind  It 

By  John  G.  Woolley 

An   address   delivered    at   the    National    Convention    of   the   American    Anti- 
Saloon    League,    December    nth,    1911,    in   Washington,    D.    C. 

At  the  time  has  come  when  a  speech  against 
the  liquor  business  can  begin,  and  must 
begin,  with  a  strong,  high  note  of  cheer. 
Not  that  the  deep,  dark  pathos  and 
outrage  of  the  thing  havei  greatly  dimin- 
ished ;   they  have  not ;   but  because  the 
apathy,  the  ignorance,  the  subserviency  of  decent  citizens, 
in  the  matter,  is  disappearing  like  the  valley  mist  at  sun- 
rise;  and  the  sparse  and  sorrowful  prohibition  militia  of 
former  clays  has  grown  to  an  enthusiastic  army  of  in- 
vasion, keen  and  fit  for  war  to  the  finish. 

To  those  of  us  who  bore  the  heat  and  burden  of  the 
movement  in  the  lean,  gray  years  of  preparation,  this  day 
has  seemed  a  long  time  on  the  way. 

When  Doctor  Billy  Clark  promoted  the  first  tem- 
perance society  of  modern  times,  in  Saratoga  County, 
New  York,  he  did  not  dream  of  anything  so  extravagant 
as  a  campaign  to  stop  the  trade,  that  lawfully,  respect- 
ably, and  as  a  matter  of  course  held  out  the  cup  that 
curses  while  it  cheers,  to  all  ranks  and  conditions  of 
society.  Even  the  expectation  of  a  little  human  salvage 
in  his  own  neighborhood  seemed  fantastical. 
That  was  in  1808. 

It  was  a  forlorn  hope  of  all  but  ruined  men  that 
formed  the  Washingtonian  society,  in  the  forties.  And 
in  the  fifties,  when  that  movement  burst  into  a  flame 
of  righteously  indignant  legislation,  that  would  have 

i 

272305 


swept  the  liquor  business  from  the  map  of  trade  and 
did  in  fact  abolish  it  in  fourteen  or  fifteen  of  the  states, 
the  earthquake  of  civil  war  came  and  engulfed  it  in  a 
tidal  wave  of  blood  and  beer  and  graft  and  bossism. 

That  was  in  the  sixties. 

How  vividly  we  can  still  recall  the  sound  of  tears 
in  Frances  Willard's  voice  when,  like  a  glorified  Peter 
the  Hermit,  she  went  sweeping  from  state  to  state,  half 
angel,  half  nemesis,  pleading,  arraigning,  inspiring. 

That  was  in  the  seventies. 

The  Prohibition  Party,  with  set,  sad  countenance, 
did  a  great  work  greatly.  It  built  a  road  for  politic- 
al liberty  of  conscience,  from  the  bi-partisan  quag- 
mire that  followed  the  Civil  War,  to  the  open  sea  of 
actual,  ethical,  intellectual,  effectual,  Christian  Democ- 
racy. 

If  there  is  any  human  activity  in  civil  or  moral 
engineering  entitled  to  be  called  fundamental  and  eter- 
nal, it  is  that  of  casting  up  highways  for  the  people. 
The  Roman  Empire  has  been  dead  for  centuries ;  but 
Roman  roads  still  stretch  their  brawny  arms  in  full, 
beneficient  efficiency,  untouched  by  age;  for  kings  may 
come  and  dynasties  may  go,  but  roads  rule  on  forever. 

A  road  is  an  atonement,  laid  in  economics.  The 
spirit  of  God  is  the  togetherness  of  men,  in  the  name 
of  progress — "two  or  three,"  or  a  billion.  It  was  no 
accident  that  Jesus  never  said,  "I  am  the  vehicle,  or  I 
am  the  organization,  or  I  am  the  man,"  but  "I  am  the 
way." 

The  Prohibition  Party  was  the  bridge  builder  of 
the  great  reform ;  a  rough  mechanic,  but  its  work 
abides  and  will  abide.  It  fixed  the  hated  word  "prohibi- 
tion" in  our  political  language  and  put  its  sneering  rival 
"personal  liberty"  in  deep  and  permanent  contempt.  It 
drove  the  tough,  straight-grained  and  seasoned  tree 
trunks  of  accomplished  knowledge,  conscience  and  con- 
viction into  the  shifting  sands  of  party  politics,  down  to 
the  hardpan.  Its  persuasions  fell  like  blows,  vexing 
and  spattering  the  Christian  voters  encamped  supinely 

2 


by  the  party  streams,  until  for  very  shame,  they  stood 
erect,  at  attention,  caught  the  key  and  rythm  of  the 
pile-driver,  enlisted  not  in  the  party  but  in  the  minute- 
men  regiments  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League,  crossed  the 
rubicon  of  Christian-democrat  belligerency,  and  threw 
their  party  badges  in  the  stream.  So  that  tonight  we 
stand  before  the  very  gates  of  victory. 

But  that  means  only  that  we  have  got  a  chance 
to  fight.  This  is  the  net  achievement  of  a  hundred 
years,  that  we  have  made  the  enemy  come  out  from  his 
distilleries  and  breweries,  his  warehouses  and  saloons, 
his  clubs  and  speakeasies,  his  drug  stores  and  canteens 
his  gambling  houses  and  brothels,  into  the  open  and 
into  battle  form. 

And  this  is  why  we  cheer  as  we  go  forward ;  not 
because  the  fight  is  finished,  but  because,  after  a  baffl- 
ing century  of  challenging  and  skirmishing,  it  has 
begun. 

But  our  present  cheers  must  not  shut  out  the 
voices  of  the  future.  We  shall  have  hot  work,  from 
now  on.  Villainy  takes  naturally  to  strategy ;  cruelty- 
dies  hard.  This  cowardly,  low-browed,  foul-breathed, 
cold-blooded,  false  tongued  degenerate  of  trades,  driv- 
en farther  and  farther  into  a  corner,  will  fight  like  hell. 
That  is  to  say,  will  strangle  with  the  brimstone  fumes 
of  slander,  will  mine  the  thoroughfares  with  murder, 
will  trap  and  torture  with  the  flying  cavalry  of  lies. 

Yet  we  do  well  to  cheer,  in  celebration  of  the  sim- 
plified conditions  of  the  conflict.  After  all  the  cark- 
ing  years  of  tricks  and  bribes  and  betrayals  and  com- 
pounded political  felonies,  the  liquor  trade,  hemmed  in 
by  mountains  of  public  sentiment  and  rivers  of  popular 
knowledge,  turns  at  bay,  takes  up  our  gage  of  battle 
and  with  satanic,  idiotic  impudence,  proposes  a  "cam- 
paign of  education." 

This  itself  is  victory,  and  the  beginning  of  the  end. 
And  if  democracy  is  not  a  failure  our  complete  tri- 
umph is  assured. 

All  the  signs  are  auspicious.  In  the  first  place, 
3 


a  finer  braver  spirit  runs  through  our  own  ranks.  The 
critical  attitude  among  ourselves  is  dying  out.  It  was 
excusable  and  inevitable  in  the  boom  days  of  mere  agi- 
tation, and  did  little  harm. 

Looking  back,  we  see  abundant  justification,  and 
even  abundant  credit,  for  us  all.  Every  move,  how- 
ever roughly  made,  was  well  worth  while.  Every  riv- 
alry promoted  zeal  and  sharpened  the  focus  of  the 
public  mind.  But  the  period  of  mere  agitation  has 
passed,  and  the  methods  and  manners  of  the  mere  agi- 
tator should  pass  with  it.  The  accent  has  shifted 
from  salvage  to  conservation,  from  agitation  to  con- 
struction, from  zeal  to  efficiency,  from  benevolence 
to  business.  And  looking*  forward,  we  see  that  divis- 
ions would  be  illogical  and  hurtful.  Cooperation  is 
the  key-note  for  the  future.  The  right  hand  of  fellow- 
ship among  ourselves  is  the  best  formation  we  can  use 
against  the  enemy.  A  man  that  can't  fight  beside  an- 
other man  who  differs  from  him  incidentally  is  not  a 
good  soldier  now. 

Shaking-hands  is  good  training  for  the  grip  and 
heart  muscles,  and  these  are  what  we  shall  use  mostly. 
With  hearts  of  oak,  we  must  close  our  ballots,  the 
white  fingers  of  our  Christian  citizenship,  on  the 
throat  of  the  liquor  traffic  and  squeeze  its  accursed 
gullet  till  it  quits  forever. 

There  must,  of  course,  be  a  few  cavilers  where  so 
many  are  engaged.  They  are  hard  to  understand.  They 
are  impossible  to  reconcile.  But  we  who  compose  the 
great  free,  untrammeled  working  body  of  the  move- 
ment ought  to  adopt  and  are  going  to  adopt  as  a  great 
working  commandment,  "Thou  shalt  not  whine  at  the 
success  of  a  comrade." 

In  the  second  place,  we  have  learned  slowly  and 
reluctantly,  but  surely,  that  economics  is  the  bones  of 
public  morality :  clothes,  shelter,  food,  efficiency,  di- 
version, justice,  man  to  man.  Moral  muscles  and 
religious  nerves  that  do  not  articulate  to  these  pro- 
duce mere  political  hysteria.  The  present  turn  of  the 

4 


tide,  in  this  long  war,  came  when  the  Blucher  of  "busi- 
ness" brought  its  burly  reinforcements  of  argument 
into  action.  And  now  at  length,  we  are  as  willing  as 
\ve  are  able  to  meet  the  economic  argument  where  it  is, 
without  any  show  of  condescension  or  affectation  of 
superior  virtue. 

The  economic  argument  is  on  the  ground,  on  the 
counter,  on  the  bench,  on  the  desk,  in  public  service, 
not  public  services.  The  organized  liquor  trade  is  base 
and  crooked  to  the  core;  but  many  a  citizen  who 
knows  that,  is  yet  dimly  but  honestly  persuaded  that 
the  license  system,  poor  as  it  is,  is  all  the  prohibition 
that  is  practicable  at  present.  Such  men  are  not  now 
to  be  belittled,  or  railed  at.  They  must  be  met  and 
brought  into  our  camp  with  facts. 

In  the  third  place,  the  height  and  the  length  of 
our  endeavor,  no  longer  blind  us  to  the  breadth  of  it. 
The  variations  of  local  sentiment  and  local  symptoms 
have  come  to  be  recognized  as  clearly,  and  taken  as 
seriously  as  the  great  central  purpose.  County-man- 
ship  is  seen  to  be  as  worthy  in  its  way,  as  statesman- 
ship, and  primarily  more  necessary  in  a  democracy. 
The  doctrine  of  the  parable  looms  large  in  reason  and 
experience,  as  well  as  authority,  that  the  faithful  over 
a  few  things  is  in  the  true  line  of  honorable  service 
and  promotion. 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  charge  may  yet  be  heard, 
sometimes,  that  local  option  is  immoral.  For  one 
thing,  the  statement  is  rank  nonsense — unless  democ- 
racy is  immoral ;  and  for  another  thing,  some  of  the 
best  work  in  the  world  is  of  the  masonry  of  honest  mis- 
takes corrected ;  and  the  sure  and  inevitable  correc- 
tion of  the  weaknesses  of  local  option  is  state  and 
national  prohibition.  The  critics  of  local  option  as- 
sume a  false  definition  of  the  term.  They  take  "local" 
to  mean  "little."  They  have  no  warrant  for  that.  Lo- 
cal option  means  progressively — town  democracy, 
county  democracy,  state  democracy,  and  federal  sov- 
ereignty. The  key-note  is  union,  one  and  indivisible. 

5 


There  are  no  state,  county  or  town  lines  dividing  the  pur- 
pose of  the  people.  But  the  John  Brown  days  are  past 
and  gone.  This  is  the  Lincoln  period  of  our  reform, 
and  the  Lincoln  breadth  and  charity  should  pervade  it. 

,In  the  fourth  place,  the  ugly  old  phrase  "whisky 
party,"  in  its  time  accurate  enough,  has  gone  to  the 
scrap  heap.  There 'is  a  whisky  party,  but  it  has  now 
no  relation  to  the  political  parties  save  that  of  a  high- 
wayman to  the  stage-coach — to  hold  them  up  and  rob 
them.  The  political  parties  are  very  disappointing, 
mixed  and  human,  but  they  are  fundamentally  patriot- 
ic. Human  weakness  and  selfishness  abound  in  them, 
but  strength  and  loyalty  much  more  abound.  I  am  no 
good  friend  of  either  party.  But  I  am  ready  to  certify 
to  the  general  deep  down  honesty  of  both.  And  to  call 
either  a  "whisky  party"  in  the  light  of  Anti-Saloon 
League  history  is  baby  talk.  At  any  rate,  party  lines 
are  fading  out,  in  the  light  of  the  new  national  moral- 
ity, and  we  have  outgrown  the  period  for  wounding 
men  to  win  them. 

In  the  fifth  place,  the  lampooning  of  Congress  is 
going  out  of  fashion.  It  is  high  time.  To  keep  it  up 
would  be  to  advertise  our  ignorance,  or  malice,  as  well 
as  to  obstruct  our  progress.  Congressional  action  is 
absolutely  necessary  in  aid  and  recognition  of  the 
police  power  of  the  states.  The  Internal  Revenue  law 
and  the  interstate  commerce  law  are  in  effect  ac- 
cessories of  the  organized  treason  to  everything  from 
the  cradle  to  the  flag.  To  bring  them  to  our  side,  or 
shame  them  into  standing  up  for  fair  play,  is  the  most 
important  work  we  have  on  hand. 

Meanwhile  Congress  has  become  friendly  toward 
our  work.  Any  reasonable  statute  that  is  surely  con- 
stitutional, in  aid  of  state  prohibition  will  pass  the  sen- 
ate and  the  house,  by  a  broadly  and  splendidly  non-par- 
tisan majority,  once  it  can  be  got  on  the  floor  for  pass- 
age. The  bill  noAv  pending  for  prohibition  in  Hawaii, 
and  the  bill  amending  the  Interstate  Commerce  law  so 
as  to  honor  the  popular  will  and  judgment  in  prohibi- 

6 


tory  states  will  pass  congress  and  be  signed  by  the 
president.  The  peril  to  such  bills  is  in  committee, 
where  unfriendly  minorities  may  be  powerful  for  de- 
lay. I  speak  from  personal  and  recent  knowledge 
when  I  say  that  we  can  look  to  Washington  with  confi- 
dence, if  only  we  are  sane  enough  and  just  enough  to 
be  patient  with  the  slow  turning  of  the  great  federal 
millstones  that  have  to  work  on  such  enormous  crops 
of  public  sentiment  and  grind  the  grist  so  fine. 

Finally,  we  realize  better  a  fact  selfcevident,  but 
often  overlooked  by  reformers,  that  we  scouts  and  cap- 
tains of  the  movement  can  go  no  faster  than  the  people. 
They  are  interested  in  many  things,  and  different 
groups  place  the  accent  of  precedence  differently ;  but 
they  have  taken  up  the  subject;  and  the  prohibition 
movement,  now,  has  no  warrant  to  demand  the  right 
of  way  and  a  clear  track.  It  must  simply  take  its  place 
with  the  rest  and  put  its  trained  and  mighty  shoulder 
to  the  wheel  of  general  progress. 

One  still  hears,  now  and  then,  that  we  must  have 
"prohibition  with  a  party  behind  it."  That,  I  think,  is 
precisely  what  we  must  not  have.  Parties,  while  not 
intrinsically  unrighteous,  are  the  weakest  engines  of 
righteousness.  They  run  by  weathercock  power. 
Their  cardinal  doctrine  is  "Thou  shalt  follow  the  mul- 
titude to  do  whatever  will  round  it  up  in  the  party 
corral."  "Thou  shalt  first  observe  the  wind  and  then, 
sow."  Their  message  to  their  young  men  is :  "My  son, 
if  enough  sinners  entice  thee,  consent  and  be  quick 
about  it." 

Minority  parties  are  exceptions.  But  when  they 
begin  to  come  to  majority  the  Delilah  of  dalliance  with 
power  crops  their  hair.  So  party  government  is  always 
weak  government ;  and  no  weak  government  will  ever 
stamp  out  the  liquor  banditti. 

This,  I  think,  is  the  rationale  of  the  present  situa- 
tion. We  have  won  our  fight  to  get  our  question  to  the 
people.  The  liquor  trade  has  lost  its  fight  to  keep  it 
away  from  the  people.  The  party  boss,  our  enemy 

7 


and  the  liquor  dealers'  friend,  has  been  Jonahed  over- 
board by  the  insurgent  crew  of  the  ship  of  state,  and  no 
political  whale  appears  to  have  the  stomach  for  a  proph- 
et of  that  flavor.  The  party  constituencies  are  running- 
together  upon  issues  of  vital  morality.  Government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  that  is  to 
say,  clean,  strong  government,  has  begun  to  arrive. 

In  the  present  forward  movement  we  have  every 
advantage  cf  equipment.  The  breath  of  victory  is  in 
our  nostrils.'  The  truth  of  history  is  with  us.  The 
voice  of  science  is  heard  in  our  camp.  The  sanctions 
of  religion  gird  us  for  battle.  The  press  corroborates 
our  message.  The  daily  walk  and  conversation  of  the 
business  world  slant  to\vard  us.  And  the  license  sys- 
tem is  itself  a  plea  of  "guilty,"  both  on  the  part  of  the 
trade  and  the  people. 

In  the  past,  until  the  advent  of  the  Anti-Saloon 
League,  we  scorned  the  critical  study  of  the  construc- 
tive value  of  methods.  Our  work  was  not  education 
but  appeal.  "Stand  up  and  be  counted  for  the  good 
you  know  and  have  published"  was  what  we  said  and 
all  we  said.  Drunkards  and  drunkenness  were  the  self- 
evident  proofs  we  offered,  and  our  whole  demand  was 
made  upon  the  Christian  voter,  not  to  think,  but  to  do. 

We  won  that  fight,  and  that  brought  us  to  the 
present  point  of  departure. 

But  let  no  man  fool  himself  with  the  thought  that 
we  have  whipped  the  liquor  traffic.  I  know  the  splen- 
did gains  that  we  have  made,  and  to  my  own  heart  I 
boast  about  them.  But  I  know  also,  all  too  well,  that 
we  have  made  little  difference  in  the  volume  of  the 
liquor  business. 

We  recall  how  General  Braddock,  able,  brave, 
proud  of  his  country,  loyal  to  his  King,  marched  with 
his  little  army  into  the  Western  wilderness  against  the 
French  and  Indians  at  Fort  Duquesne.  The  Indians 
met  him  first.  From  every  British  point  of  view  they 
were  contemptible.  He  could  have  wiped  them  out 
before  breakfast  if  he  could  have  laid  hands  on  them. 

8 


They  were  there  but  he  scarcely  caught  sight  of  them, 
in  one  respect  they  were  anything  but  contemptible — 
tenacity  and  singleness  of  purpose.  They  knew  noth- 
ing about  honor.  They  knew  nothing  about  military 
form.  But  they  knew  the  value  of  a  lawless  wilderness, 
to  savages,  and  they  were  there  to  defend,  possess  and 
enjoy  it.  They  were  not  too  proud  to  crawl  like  snakes 
in  the  grass.  They  dodged  from  tree  to  tree.  They  ran 
like  hares  but  they  came  back  like  flies.  They  shot 
straight.  They  staid  by  the  stuff.  And  the  general 
got  into  history  as  the  author  of  "Braddock's  defeat/' 

Our  enemy  is  like  that.  But  we  are  not  like  that. 
The  advance  guard  of  the  liquor  trade  are  moral,  in- 
dustrial and  political  savages.  They  are  lawless  and 
pitiless.  They  get  their  pleasure  out  of  the  pain  of 
others.  Their  profits  are  the  losses  of  others.  They 
crouch  like  cats  upon  the  bosom  of  society  and  suck 
the  gasping  lips  of  failure  for  their  breath  of  life. 
They  are  out  for  pelts  and  scalps  and  plunder.  They 
sneak;  they  crawl;  they  burrow;  they  murder  while 
they  run ;  they  torture  the  captured,  they  rob  the  dead. 

But  ours  if  not  better  soldiers  than  our  kinsmen 
at  Fort  Duquesne  knew  their  enemy  better.  Baffled 
and  checked  by  treachery,  they  kept  right  on.  Shot  in 
the  back  they  fell  forward,  and  we  stepped  over  them, 
and  sounded  the  advance ;  until  by  sheer  devotion  we 
have  torn  the  blanket  savages  of  the  liquor  trade  from 
their  cover.  And  now,  at  last,  they  form  in  the  open, 
under  the  walls  of  their  twin  citadels,  the  brewery  and 
the  distillery,  where  the  sleek  and  epauletted  field  mar- 
shals of  the  business  are  in  council  and  command.  And 
now  these  heroes  of  hops,  these  moralists  of  malt,  these 
sour  mash  patriots  with  their  feet  in  the  fountain  of  the 
public  right,  have  set  up  a  bureau  of  fake  statistics  and 
ordered  "a  campaign  of  education."  It  is  a  dirty  battle, 
for  clean-fighting  men,  but  we  have  no  choice  but  to 
accept  it. 

So  then,  at  last  and  finally,  after  all  the  chasing- 
and  cross-firing,  after  all  the  camp-fever  and  discontent, 

9 


we  face  the  issue  and  the  enemy,  and  the  ancient,  eter- 
nal general  orders  for  righteousness  run  along  the  line, 
"Say  unto  the  children  of  progress  that  they  go  for- 
ward." 

Prohibitionists  in  Bands  of  Hope  and  Loyal  Le- 
gions, with  gentle  -insistence  getting  little  boys  and 
girls  to  sign  the  pledge  of  total  abstinence.  Go  for- 
ward ! 

Prohibtionists  in  Rescue  Missions,  throwing  the 
life-line  to  half-dead  derelicts  of  the  saloon,  Go  for- 
ward ! 

Prohibitionists  in  the  Woman's  Christian  Temper- 
ance Union  "doing  everything"  to  save  and  build  up 
womanhood,  Go  forward ! 

Prohibitionists  in  leagues  and  federations,  mar- 
shaling the  troops  of  trade  and  health  and  order  against 
exposed  positions  of  the  enemy,  Go  forward ! 

Prohibitionists  in  bureaus  at  Washington  carrying 
ammunition  for  the  heavy  ordinance  on  Capitol  Hill, 
Go  forward ! 

Prohibitionists  in  press  and  pulpit  keeping  watch 
over  the  springs  of  civic  righteousness  and  justice,  Go 
forward ! 

Prohibitionists  at  large,  enlisted  but  voteless  home- 
makers,  bearing  the  ark  of  the  covenant  of  liberty  and 
democracy,  Go  forward ! 

Is  that  all?  Yes  that  is  all.  Heaven  is  only  a  di- 
rection— forward.  Hell  is  an  adverb — "back."  For- 
ward !  Everybody  !  That  is  good  politics.  That  is  the 
law  and  the  gospel.  That  is  knowing  God.  That  is 
immortality. 

Now,  what  are  the  branches  taught  in  the  liquor 
dealers'  campaign  of  education?  I  shall  take  that  up 
presently.  What  is  not  taught  is  most  instructive. 

Who  teaches  that  a  saloon,  a  brewery,  a  distillery, 
a  liquor  store,  is  a  good  thing  for  any  community? 

Who  teaches  that  the  liquor  seller  grades  up  to 
the  level  .of  the  baker  or  the  carpenter,  in  the  scheme 
of  business  life? 

IO 


Who  teaches  that  it  is  a  hardship  that  the  saloon 
must  pay  a  thousand  dollars  a  year  for  the  mere  priv- 
ilege of  showing  its  painted  harlot  face  among  the 
decent  stores? 

Who  teaches  that  it  is  a  short-sighted  social  policy 
to  forbid  the  sale  of  liquor  to  men  below  the  age  of 
twenty-one  ? 

.   Who  teaches  that  the  best  patron  of  the  saloon 
acquires  the  best  judgment  for  such  buying? 

Who  teaches  that  in  advertising  the  attractions 
of  a  community  saloons  should  be  set  down  with 
churches,  schools  and  factories? 

Not  a  man,  drunk  or  sober,  in  all  the  motley  mul- 
titude of  teachers  and  pupils  in  the  "campaign  of  edu- 
cation" was  ever  heard  to  claim  one  atom  of  virtue  or 
patriotism  or  righteousness  for  the  business. 

Call  up  the  grocery  and  challenge  it,  "What  right 
have  you  to  live?"  "The  right  of  being  honest  and 
useful  and  helpful.  By  so  much  as  my  merchandise 
goes  out  into  the  homes  of  the  community,  it  is  made 
a  better  place  to  live  in."' 

Call  up  the  saloon :  "Why  should  we  not  tar  and 
feather  you  and  ride  you  out  of  town  upon  a  rail? 
Why  should  we  not  hang  you  by  the  neck  at  the  edge 
of  the  city  as  a  warning  to  others  of  your  kind?"  And 
it  answers  solely  and  finally :  "My  license."  Year  after 
year  it  shuffles  to  the  city  hall  and  buys  a  permit  to  live, 
like  a  dog,  by  virtue  of  the  tag  of  bloody  gold  upon  its 
neck. 

Affirmatively,  the  liquor  "campaign  of  education" 
includes  about  a  dozen  propositions.  They  are  mere 
effigy  epigrams  set  up  to  look  like  arguments ;  and 
every  one  a  lie. 

"Prohibition  is  sumptuary  legislation ;  it  violates 
personal  liberty ;  it  hurts  business ;  it  increases  taxes ; 
it  attacks  vested  rights ;  it  causes  "blind  pigs ;"  it  makes 
men  sneaks ;  it  discriminates  against  the  poor;  it  creates 
a  demand  for  drugs ;  it  is  unscriptural ;  it  does  not  pro- 
hibit ;  yon  cannot  make  men  sober  by  law." 

II 


Where  is  the  proof  in  support  of  these  proposi- 
tions? There  is  none.  They  are  not  set  up  to  be 
proved.  They  are  not  meant  to  be  studied,  but  to  be 
swallowed  holus  bolus.  They  are  not  meant  to  instruct 
but  to  stultify.  They  are  mere  iteration  directed  at 
weakness,  prejudice  and  ignorance.  Who  are  the  iter- 
ators? Simply  the  advertising  agents  of  the  trade, 
garnished  with  a  handful  of  unfortunate  preachers  who 
have  lost  their  bearings. 

The  liquor  trade's  own  classification  of  itself  is 
with  the  brothel,  the  rat-pit,  the  faro  bank,  the  prize 
ring  and  the  race  course,  as  a  necessary  evil — a  safety 
valve  for  native,  and  incorrigible  brutism. 

But  let  us  surprise  these  new  educators  by  taking 
them  seriously — as  seriously  as  possible. 

And  first:  What  is  a  sumptuary  law?  It  is,  or 
was,  a  law  directed  at  the  buyer,  attempting  to  regulate 
his  conduct,  in  matters  of  mere  indifference,  without 
any  good  end  in  view.  For  instance,  in  the  reign  of 
Edward  IV  a  statute  was  enacted  prohibiting  anybody 
"under  the  degree  of  a  lord,"  from  buying  shoes  having 
points  over  two  inches  long  at  the  toes.  The  idea  was 
to  discourage  habits  of  luxury  among  the  common 
people,  but  it  was  manifestly  unjust  and  foolish. 

A  prohibitory  liquor  law  is  directed  at  the  business 
of  selling  poison  as  a  beverage  and  of  maintaining  a 
rendezvous  for  temptation,  dissipation  and  disorder. 
It  says  to  no  man :  "Thou  shalt  not  buy  nor  drink"- 
though  it  may,  and  may  well,  come  to  that.  It  is  in 
the  nature  of  a  quarantine  regulation,  which  never 
says :  "Thou  shalt  not  catch  yellow  fever,"  but :  "Thou 
shalt  not  spread  yellow  fever."  Incidentally  a  law  that 
restrains  a  man  from  selling  liquor  to  his  neighbor  di- 
minishes the  neighbor's  liberty  to  spend  his  own  mon- 
ey and  experiment  with  his  own  body,  but  that  does 
not  make  it  a  sumptuary  law. 

Prohibition  rebukes  personal  selfishness.  But  how 
does  it  violate  personal  liberty?  Personal  liberty,  ac- 
cording to  Judge  Cooley,  our  greatest  writer  on  con- 

12 


stitutional  questions,  is  simply  that  condition  in  which 
rights  are  established  and  protected  by  means  of  such 
limitations  and  restraints  upon  the  action  of  individual 
members  of  the  political  society  as  are  needed  to  pre- 
vent what  would  be  injurious  to  other  individuals,  or 
prejudicial  to  the  general  welfare.  That  is  to  say: 
"Obedience  to  law  is  liberty,"  and  the  liquor  dealer  is 
incorrigibly  a  traitor  in  the  camp  of  law. 

Absolute  liberty  exists  only  where  the  person  pos- 
sessing it  is  powerless  to  injure  others.  A  shipwrecked 
man,  alone  on  a  raft  in  mid-ocean,  has  it,  but  would 
give  the  whole  world  to  swap  it  for  the  limitations, 
that  is  to  say,  the  enlargements  of  civil  liberty — the 
only  kind  of  liberty  that  anybody  but  a  fool  or  a  villain 
counts  worth  having.  In  short,  absolute  liberty  is  only 
the  obverse  side  of  vital  bankruptcy. 

The  liquor  business  is  injurious  to  everybody,  in- 
cluding the  owner,  and  prejudicial  to  every  public  in- 
terest. Nobody  denies  that.  Prohibition  is  not  tyr- 
anny, but  protection  for  all  men,  women,  children  and 
domestic  animals. 

Does  prohibition  hurt  business?  Yes,  all  the  busi- 
ness that  tends  to  ruin — brothels,  gambling  dens,  the 
white  slave  trade,  vagrancy,  begging,  pawning,  divorc- 
ing. But  it  helps  every  business  that  makes  for  "more 
abundant  life." 

There  is  plenty  of  answers  to  the  complaint  that 
prohibition  increases  taxes.  In  the  first  place,  there  is 
no  limit  to  the  right  of  the  people  to  increase  taxes  for 
the  general  welfare.  In  the  second  place,  the  people 
never  object  to  increased  taxes,  if  the  money  be  honest- 
ly spent  for  the  public  betterment.  If  prohibition 
sometimes  increases  taxation,  the  people's  ability  to 
pay  is  much  more  increased.  The  tax  rate  does  some- 
times rise,  when  prohibition  is  adopted,  but  the  rise 
is  only  temporary.  The  assessed  valuation  of  property 
increases,  industry  revives,  earning  power  improves ; 
court,  police,  poor-house  expenses  decrease,  and,  after 
a  year  or  twro,  the  rate  swings  back  to  normal  or 

13 


below.  If  not,  it  is  because  increased  school  attend- 
ance compels  new  schoolhouses  and  teachers,  or  the 
higher  plane  of  living,  or  the  quickening  of  civic  pride 
demands  better  roads  and  public  buildings,  or  new  pub- 
lic works  for  light,  water,  transportation,  sewers  and 
the  like,  or  because  the  public  business  is  poorly  or  dis- 
honestly conducted. 

As  to  the  destruction  of  property.  A  liquor  license 
is  not  property.  It  is  a  badge  of  beggary  and  infamy, 
and  a  disgraceful  but  temporary  waiver  of  the  in- 
alienable duty  of  the  state  to  protect  life,  liberty  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness.  Even  if  it  were  property,  prohibi- 
tion does  not  destroy  it,  but  only  declines  to  resuscitate 
it  when  it  dies;  or  if  prohibition  does  destroy  it,  it  is 
only  the  tearing  down  of  an  infected  shack  to  save  a  city. 

Does  prohibition  discriminate  against  the  poor? 
Never.  It  knows  no  rich  or  poor  or  good  or  bad.  If 
the  liquor  business  is  good  for  the  poor,  a  poor  man 
ought  to  be  able  to  engage  in  it.  But  it  is  the  license 
system  that  squeezes  out  the  poor.  The  chief  charac- 
teristic of  high  license  is  that  it  favors  the  applicants 
that  have  the  most  money. 

Does  prohibition  make  men  sneaks  ?  It  simply  forces 
a  moment  of  decision  to  be  a  man,  or  a  sneak.  It  segre- 
gates the  sneak  into  his  own  class,  apart  from  men  who 
will  not  sneak.  It  did  not  put  the  sneak  sheriff  and  the 
sneak  mayor  in  office  at  Newark,  Ohio.  It  only  coagu- 
lated the  bad  blood  in  the  body  politic  so  that  the  surgeon- 
governor  could  cut  out  the  embolism  and  save  the  city's 
life. 

Does  prohibition  cause  the  use  of  other  drugs?  The 
disease  and  depravity  induced  by  alcohol  doubtless  seek 
solace  and  excitement  in  other  equivalents  of  poison ;  but 
that  argument  proves  too  much.  It  would  cut  out  pro- 
hibition of  opium  and  cocaine,  which  are  indeed  less 
dangerous  on  the  whole  than  alcohol. 

Does  prohibition  breed  "blind  pigs?"  High  license 
is  the  cut-snouted,  swill  fed  mother  of  that  breed  of 


swine.  Prohibition  puts  out  of  business  the  argus-eyed  old 
razor-backs  that  can  see  through  anything  from  a  police- 
man to  a  president,  from  a  candidate  to  a  church,  from  a 
bunghole  to  a  bishop,  and  makes  them  and  their  litters 
game  for  the  sheriff.  "Blind  pigs"  are  hard  to  catch. 
But  they  do  little  harm  as  compared  to  their  open-eyed 
dams.  The  blind  pig  suckles  its  own  scrub  sort,  but 
makes  no  strong  bid  for  the  better  born.  Its  dirty  dugs 
are  uninviting  to  the  more  cleanly  animalism.  Prohibi- 
tion kills  the  open  saloons  and  chases  the  blind  pigs. 
License  protects  the  open  saloons  and  carries  legal  gar- 
bage to  its  blind  relatives. 

But  we  shall  still  have  the  blind  pigs,  under  prohi- 
bition! Yes,  any  good  housekeeper  may  have  a  few 
cockroaches  in  the  kitchen.  But  no  good  housekeeper 
would  agree  to  keep  a  few  extra  large  and  capable  cock- 
roaches in  her  kitchen. 

Is  prohibition  unscriptural?  Who  says  it  is?  The 
brewery.  Who  says  it  is  not?  The  church.  Which 
should  know  best?  Which  has  the  best  character  as  a 
witness?  The  whole  area  of  scriptural  endeavor,  from 
Sinai  to  Salvation  Army,  stands  for  prohibition.  Paul's 
advice  to  Timothy,  to  use  a  little  wine  as  a  medicine,  is 
irrelevant.  That  Jesus  made  wine — if  he  did — at  Cana, 
for  guests  who  after  hours  of  festivity,  and  having  "well 
drunk,"  were  still  so  clear-headed  and  clean-mouthed 
that  they  detected  and  enjoyed  the  new,  fine  flavor  of 
a  better  article,  does  not  bear.  We  are  not  dealing  with 
medical  prescriptions  or  ancient  oriental  hospitality,  or 
wine  miraculously  made,  but  with  twentieth  century 
breweries  and  distilleries  that  organize  dissipation  into 
trusts  to  exploit  the  weak  and  ignorant  and  vicious,  to 
the  tune  of  billions  annually.  The  scripture  that,  is  in 
point  is  "Woe  unto  him  that  giveth  his  neighbor  drink." 

When  a  man  tells  you  that  "you  can't  make  men 
moral  by  law,"  you  may  know  that  you  are  being  in- 
structed by  a  parrot,  a  fakir  or  a  fool.  He  might  as  well 
say  you  can't  produce  a  bent  tree  by  inclining  the  twig. 

15 


He  might  as  well  tell  you  that  you  can't  deepen  a  stream 
by  building  a  j  etty.  He  might  as  well  say  you  can't  improve 
poor  soil  by  sowing  clover.  That  is  about  all  you  can 
do  by  law.  Laws  are  almost  never  enforced  literally. 
Comparatively  few  receive  punishment  for  broken  law. 
Not  many  give  obedience  to  law  through  fear.  A 
remedial  statute  cuts  comparatively  little  figure  in  the 
first  fifty  years  of  its  existence.  It  is  the  silent,  unfelt 
pressure  of  it  on  incoming  generations  that  makes  the 
people  moral  by  so  much  as  it  is  moral.  It  is  not  the 
sheriffs  but  the  teachers  that  bring  on  the  reign  of  obedi- 
ence and  order.  And  the  law  is  the  great  schoolmaster 
to  bring  us  to  itself — that  is  to  liberty. 

The  assertion  that  "  "prohibition  does  not  prohibit" 
is  a  curiosity.  It  might,  if  one  were  not  afraid  of  being 
inelegant,  be  called  a  luminiferous  lie.  It  analyzes  a 
well-hole  of  darkness,  as  accurately  as  the  prism  dissolves 
a  ray  of  light  into  the  solar  spectrum. 

Who  says:  "Prohibition  does  not  prohibit?"  The 
liquor  dealer.  Who  profits  when  it  fails?  The  liquor 
dealer.  Who  makes  it  fail?  The  liquor  dealer.  Why 
does  it  fail?  Because  the  average  liquor  dealer  is  con- 
fessedly and  incorrigibly  a  criminal,  a  combination  of 
Pagan  and  Bill  Sikes,  in  contempt  of  the  popular  will  and 
the  popular  right. 

Does  somebody  resent  that  generalization  on  the 
ground  that  many  liquor  dealers  are  men  of  good  repute  ? 
I  am  not  speaking  of  repute.  I  am  speaking  broadly  of 
character,  and  I  weigh  my  words.  Tell  me  wherein  is  a 
fence  for  stolen  goods  worse  than  an  office  of  big  busi- 
ness that  knowingly  and  wilfully  supplies  liquor  to 
brothels  and  speakeasies,  to  the  contempt  and  confusion 
of  law.  Tell  me  by  how  much  is  the  sender  of  obscene 
literature,  or  lottery  tickets,  through  the  mails  a  meaner 
degenerate  than  the  merchant  prince  that  establishes  his 
•igents  on  the  border  and  ships  alcoholic  liquor  to  illicit 
dealers  in  prohibition  areas  ?  Tell  me  what  kind  of  traitor 
is  more  dangerous  to  liberty  than  the  liquor  dealer  who 

16 


denies  and  prevents  the  right  of  the  people  even  to  vote 
on  the  question  of  prohibition?  For  sheer  damnable  in- 
solence if  for  no  other  reason  the  liquor  traffic  ought  to 
he  killed. 

These  are  the  ugly  high  lights  brought  out  in  this 
rough,  brief  analysis  of  the  failures  of  prohibition.  We 
have  in  tlr's  country  an  organized  band  of  business  out- 
laws, the  most  compact,  determined  and  efficient  body  in 
American  politics,  business  and  crime,  the  crudest  master 
and  the  most  generous  rewarder  of  weaklings  and  crim- 
inals in  office.  It  is  undeniably  difficult  to  control  them. 
lUit  unless  this'  is  to  be  a  government  of  liquor  dealers, 
by  liquor  dealers  and  for  liquor  dealers,  this  masterful 
cabal  of  traitors,  now  seen  so  clearly  and  so  unanimously 
despised,  is  due  for  destruction. 

And  that  is  not  prophecy,  but  living,  growing  fact. 
The  law  abiding  are  already  coming  to  their  own.  De- 
cency and  sobriety  under  law  are  gaining  ground,  and  the 
full-pocketed,  red-handed,  black-hearted  conspiracy  is 
giving  back,  with  snarlings  and  curses,  to  its  fall. 

Prohibition  already  works  well  in  country  places, 
next  best  in  villages  and  little  towns,  worst  in  cities,  but 
better  and  better  everywhere. 

In  Maine  notwithstanding  its  millions  of  summer 
visitors  from  the  cities,  and  the  swarm  of  unruly  men  in- 
cident to  the  present  era  of  internal  development,  the 
law  makes  headway.  The  people,  the  hardest-headed  in 
the  union,  loyally  maintain  the  law ;  the  Congressional 
delegation,  the  ablest  in  Congress,  affirm  the  value  of  the 
policy,  and  the  governors  certify  to  its  increasing  success 
in  practice.  The  shrinkage  in  the  prohibitory  major- 
ity, shown  by  the  recent  election  represents  simply  the 
discouragement  of  cities,  by  the  interference  of  the 
interstate  commerce  law,  which  can  and  will  be  re- 
lieved by  a  brief  act  of  Congress  classifying  alcoholic 
liquors  with  cow-ticks  and  renderpest  and  small-pox. 

In  Kansas,  the  plague  spots  of  nullification  are  clear- 
ing up.  Kansas  City,  Topeka,  Wichita  and  Leavenworth 

17 


obey  the  law;  the  jails  are  nearly  empty;  and  the  poor 
farms  are  rechristened  "prosperity  stations",  and  devoted 
to  agricultural  instruction  and  experiment. 

North  Dakota  shows  a  similar  record.  In  every 
prohibition  state  conditions  of  enforcement  go  visibly 
from  good  to  better.  Still  better  conditions  are  near  at 
hand  in  Congressional  relief,  against  the  defeat  of  the 
"dry"  states  by  bad  neighbors  on  their  borders  under 
the  unfair  provisions  of  the  inter-state  commerce  law. 

Meanwhile  the  moral  level  rises  and  the  civic  fiber 
toughens,  in  town,  city,  county,  state  and  nation.  The 
day  of  the  "good  man"  in  office  has  arrived.  The  sun  of 
partyism  is  going  down.  And  prohibition  of  the  liquor 
traffic  after  fifty  years  prohibits  better  than  the  decalogue 
after  five  thousand. 

This,  briefly,  but  fully  enough,  is  a  study  of  the 
liquor  campaign  of  obscuration.  It  seems  necessary  to 
treat  it  thus  respectfully  for  the  benefit  of  the  great 
number  of  vaguely  favorable  voters,  for  whom  the  old- 
fashioned  strong,  bulk,  arguments  assume  too  much  of 
knowledge  and  of  interest.  It  remains  to  present  our 
own  case,  briefly  and  summarily,  in  rebuttal. 

It  has  been  shown  conclusively  that  the  use  of  alco- 
holic liquor  tends  to  excess ;  and  on  that  word  "excess" 
the  whole  stress  of  former  argument  has  been  laid  until 
now.  The  strong,  well-disposed,  well-to-do,  untempted 
and  unemotional  man  of  affairs  has  confessed  and  avoided 
the  issue  by  answering:  "But  alcohol  is  a  food,  a  medi- 
cine, and  a  legitimate  article  of  trade,  to  be  sold  under 
careful  regulations  and  used  in  reason.  Nursing  mothers 
require  it,  the  anaemic,  the  dyspeptic,  the  tuberculous,  the 
over-worked.  We  must  forbid  sales  to  minors  and 
drunkards.  We  must  prescribe  hours  for  the  business. 
We  must  police  it  rigidly.  We  must  provide,  at  public 
expense,  for  treatment  or  imprisonment  for  inebriates. 
We  must  encourage  the  Salvation  Army  and  private 
benevolences  in  the  interest  of  the  weak  and  the  de- 
praved." 

18 


This  answer,  if  it  were  sound,  was  so  narrow  and 
so  shallow  that  it  seems  both  heartless  and  stupid.  It 
made  no  account  of  the  parents,  wives  and  children  of 
the  patrons  and  victims  of  the  trade,  nor  of  the  economic 
losses  and  injustices  entailed  upon  the  citizens  who  serve 
the  people  in  the  useful  trades  and  professions.  But  it 
was  not  sound.  Alcohol  has  practically  no  food  value. 
It  is  a  dangerous  medicine  and  a  more  demoralizing 
article  of  trade  than  opium,  cocaine  and  lottery  tickets 
all  combined. 

The  old  argument  that  centered  on  "excess"  holds 
good  today  of  course,  and  strengthens  with  the  years.  But 
the  new  century  brings  forth  new  challenges  and  broader 
reasoning.  And  now  the  accent  of  the  argument  moves 
up  from  "excess"  to  moderation,  from  weak  men  to 
strong  men,  from  pious  men  to  business  men,  from 
minors  and  drunkards  to  the  mature  and  the  sober. 

This  is  part  of  the  same. change  that  has  taken  place 
in  all  the  lines  of  moral  and  intellectual  progress.  The 
histories  that  we  older  people  studied  were  the  geneal- 
ogies of  kings  and  the  tragedies  of  martyrs  and  soldiers. 
Those  that  children  study  now  are  plain  stories  of  the 
customs  of  the  common  people. 

Almost  the  youngest  of  us  can  remember  how  the 
patriotic  speeches  used  to  ring  the  changes  on  the  evils 
of  monarchy ;  the  insolence  of  kings ;  our  escape  from 
old-world  oppression  ;  liberty  of  conscience  and  the  great, 
raw  rights  of  man. 

But  today  we  laugh  at  that  kind  of  oratory.  Popular 
statesmanship  consists  no  longer  in  twisting  the  British 
lion's  tail,  but  the  American  elephant  and  donkey  have 
fallen  upon  evil  times  for  tail  culture.  Normal,  present, 
detailed  matters  of  internal  right  and  duty  and  prosperity 
are  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion.  The  moral  and  mental 
revolution  that  came  in  with  the  new  century  has  for  its 
nucleus  the  new,  great  word  "conservation."  It  concerns 
not  only  the  care  of  forests,  mines  and  water  power,  but 
also,  and  more,  the  preservation  of  health,  opportunity, 

19 


efficiency  and  man-power.  Or,  put  negatively,  for  the 
sake  of  greater  clearness,  since  a  great  part  of  the  busi- 
ness of  democracy  today  consists  in  throwing  up  de- 
fenses against  domestic  pests  and  raiders  and  robbers, 
the  public  mind  is  focussed  now  on  problems  of  prevent- 
ing waste,  privilege,  poverty,  sickness  and  preventible 
suffering. 

Religion  that  used  to  thunder  about  heaven  and  hell 
and  damnation,  today  speaks  quietly  of  a  new  earth  here 
and  now,  with  salvation  running  in  the  streets  in  pipes, 
on  wires,  in  housing,  sanitation  and  recreation. 

Medicine  that  used  to  be  anchored  at  the  bedside  of 
disease  is  now  the  minister  of  health,  and  works  in  the 
open,  treating  the  streams  and  marshes  where  the  pur- 
veyors of  sickness  make  their  home.  Law  that  used  to 
revel  in  breaches  of  contract,  damages  for  torts,  and 
punishments  for  crimes,  concerns  itself  today  with  coun- 
sel for  the  avoidance  of  actions  and  trespasses,  and  the 
devising  of  wholesale  measures  of  reform.  The  great 
charities  that  used  to  lay  their  emphasis  on  misery,  now 
put  their  millions  into  playgrounds,  parks,  schools  of  re- 
search, with  a  keynote  of  happiness.  Rescue  work  that 
used  to  sit  and  scan  the  sea  of  life  for  wrecks,  now 
carries  cheer  and  instruction  to  the  homes  where  the 
small  craft  of  citizenship  are  outfitting  for  the  deep. 

Prohibition  is  simply  a  part  of  this  revolution.  And 
it  is  only  fair  to  say,  the  other  way  around,  that  this 
revolution  is  in  part  the  work  of  the  prohibition  move- 
ment. 

Many  a  strong,  good  man  indulges  a  temperate  drink 
habit  without  fear  and  possibly  without  danger  of  be- 
coming debauched.  To  him  the  horrors  of  the  old- 
fashioned  argument  are  not  impressive.  But  when  we 
know  and  prove  by  irrefragable  authority,  as  we  do  now, 
that  no  man  can  use  alcohol  as  a  beverage  without  suffer- 
ing- an  actual  and  measurable  slowing  of  his  reaction 
time,  reduction  of  his  highest  efficiency,  and  lowering  of 
his  power  of  resistance  to  disease,  we  can  command  his 

2O 


attention  and  his  aid.  This  man,  pent  up  in  the  midst  of 
terrific  competition,  demanding  the  hest,  and  keen  to  give 
the  best,  is  sure  and  ready  to  listen  when  we  tell  him  that 
alcohol  is  not  only  a  habit-forming  beverage,  but  also  and 
more  certainly,  a  disease-breeding  drug,  the  prolific 
cause  of  Bright's  disease,  tuberculosis,  insanity  and 
paresis ;  that  the  whole  liquor  business  stands  for  waste, 
inefficiency,  failure,  sickness ;  that  it  stands  for  race 
suicide,  milkless  breasts  in  motherhood,  and  rickets  and 
epilepsy  in  children,  even  from  the  womb. 

We  claim  this  man  for  prohibition  because  we  can 
I > rove  that  the  liquor  business  is  the  public  school  of  the 
drink  habit,  and  the  town  pump  of  disease. 

We  claim  this  man  for  prohibition  because  we  can 
pn»ve  that  the  menace  of  the  liquor  business  is  like  an 
iceberg,  showing  above  the  surface  only  a  tithe  of  its 
whole  bad  bulk. 

We  demand  that  this  man  read  into  the  license 
opium,  or  cocaine,  instead  of  liquor,  and  then  take  the 
bearings  of  his  civic  obligations. 

We  claim  this  man  for  prohibition  precisely  for  the 
reason  that  the  Board  of  Health  conscripts  him  into  the 
extermination  of  rats  that  carry  bubonic  plague.  We 
claim  this  man  for  prohibition  on  the  same  ground  that 
the  state  slaughters  tuberculous  cows,  and  .the  munici- 
pality taxes  him  to  drain  the  marshes  where  the  mosqui- 
toes breed,  in  malaria  and  yellow  fever.  We  claim  this 
man  for  prohibition  for  the  same  reason  that  we  compel 
him  to  clean  up  his  stable,  and  cart  away  the  dung  hill, 
where  the  housefly  larva  takes  on  typhoid  fever  for  dis- 
tribution when  its  wings  have  grown. 

This  average  man,  dispassionate,  calculating,  hard- 
headed,  is  our  objective.  He  carries  the  keys  of  political 
power,  to  legislate  and  to  enforce  the  law.  Every  plan  of 
campaign  must  stand  or  fall,  by  its  final  effect  gn  him. 
So  tested  out,  through  forty  years  of  strenuous  and  mag- 
nificent devotion,  the  Prohibition  Party  fails  in  these 
constructive  days.  Tt  was  first  to  get  a  sure  grip  on  the 

21 


keynote  of  the  movement,  academically  sounded  by  the 
Good  Templars,  that  the  liquor  trade  must  go,  by  the 
votes  of  the  people.  It  was  pious,  passionate,  intelligent, 
altruistic.  As  an  agitator  it  stood  head  and  shoulders 
above  us  all.  But  like  many  another  agitator,  discoverer, 
inventor,  it  broke  down  at  its  strong  point.  A  Hercules 
in  the  war  for  independent  voting,  it  became  blindly  and 
savagely  partizan.  Charity,  the  greatest  grace  and  wis- 
dom of  democracy  atrophied  in  its  bosom.  Its  touch 
became  too  heavy  for  constructive  politics.  It  fixed  its 
clear,  far  sighted  eyes  on  the  delectable  mountain  tops  of 
national  courage,  truth,  justice,  righteousness,  and  scorn- 
ed the  lowly  but  necessary  notches  and  circuits  and  zig- 
zags of  the  upward  trail.  It  won  promptly  and  splendidly 
a  noble  following  of  pastors,  prophets,  apostles,  and 
others  who  had  felt  the  adder  tooth  of  drink  and  got 
away.  But  it  never  touched  the  mixed,  refractory  multi- 
tude. It  arrested  the  thought  and  compelled  the  attention 
of  practically  the  whole  decent  electorate  to  the  folly  and 
infamy  of  the  liquor  situation,  and  the  perfidy  of  party- 
ism  to  official  oaths. 

It  had  the  principle,  the  passion,  the  courage,  the 
endurance.  But  it  could  not  get  the  voters.  It  stood 
out,  a  heroic,  lonely  figure,  on  the  plains,  and  pointed 
all  men  to  the  heights  of  power.  But  it  refused  to  walk, 
heel  and  toe,  with  the  common  people  up  the  seamed  and 
slippery  sides.  It  was  Moses  without  Aaron  and  without 
Israel. 

At  its  front,  between  its  great  ideal  and  its  little 
ability  to  lead,  the  Anti-Saloon  League  gathered,  with  no 
bond  but  a  common,  patriotic  impulse,  and  no  pretension 
but  a  desire  to  serve,  and  sounded  its  militant  bugle  for 
the  long,  slow  climb.  It  asked  no  man  to  belong  to  it.  It 
swore  no  man  to  persist  to  the  summit.  It  proclaimed 
the  liberty  of  every  man  to  work  out  his  own  definition^ 
of  loyalty.  It  simply  pulled  its  belt  tight,  set  its  jaw  hard 
and  started  up,  crying:  Keep  your  head;  keep  clean; 
keep  sweet ;  keep  together ;  keep  on.  God  for  us  all ! 

22 


The  average  citizen,  who  shrunk,  as  yet,  from  signing 
the  bulk  program  of  national  virtue,  believed  in  it  in- 
creasingly. His  purse  strings,  tied  tight  against  the  Party, 
opened  to  the  League.  Communities  that  owned,  as  yet, 
no  responsibility  for  their  neighbor  corporations,  follow- 
ed its  lead.  Economists,  and  politicians  of  the  better  sort 
who  have  an  eye  to  balances  and  symmetry  of  progress, 
gave  their  approval.  Conservative  churches,  closed 
against  the  Party,  opened  hospitably  to  the  League.  The 
press  that  looked  coldly  on  Party  news  opened  its  col- 
umns to  the  League  reports.  Congress,  deaf  to  the  voice 
of  the  Party,  gave  solicitous  attention  to  the  League.  The 
White  House,  closed,  or  scantily  courteous,  to  the  Party 
leaders,  welcomed  the  superintendent  of  the  League. 
Party  lines,  held  taut  against  the  Party,  fell  apart  like 
ropes  of  sand  before  the  League.  The  liquor  traffic 
turned  from  sneering  at  the  Party,  gnashed  its  teeth  and 
howled,  put  up  distress  signals  and  organized  against  the 
League,  the  only  thing  on  earth  it  fears  today. 

The  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  the 
National  Reform  Bureau  and  the  Catholic  Total  Absti- 
nence Society,  are  in  full,  efficient  co-operation  with  the 
League,  and  it  with  them. 

The  Federation  of  Churches  is  now  organizing  for 
leadership.  It  is  no  disloyalty  to  the  League  for  me  to 
wish  it  well.  I  pay  no  vows  to  an  instrument.  My  oath 
of  allegiance  is  to  God  alone  and  my  hand  is  for  the 
people  and  the  cause.  If  the  Federation  of  Churches 
wins  the  decision  of  the  country,  confirming  its  opinion 
of  itself,  I  shall  join  it,  without  saying,  "by  your  leave" 
to  anybody.  I  am  for  the  best  thing  in  the  field  to  kill 
the  liquor  traffic,  and  always  ready  for  something  better 
when  it  comes. 

But  I  am  not  hopeful  for  the  new  organization. 
There  is  a  strain  of  hatred  in  it  for  the  League  and  the 
League  leaders,  that  will  dwarf  its  growth.  It  challenges 
the  title  of  the  League  to  serve  the  Church,  on  the 
technicality  that  it  has  no  ecclesiastical  credentials.  This 

23 


is  trivial,  the  League  is  not  a  missionary,  but  a  righting 
machine ;  and  its  victories  are  its  credentials.  The  Fed- . 
eration  bases  its  claims  to  lead  the  masses,  on  ecclesiasti- 
cal regularity.  The  masses  will  never  stand  for  a  re- 
ligious "union  label,"  and  the  church  voters  themselves 
will  turn  it  down.  Iri  the  terminology  of  the  League,  the 
Church  of  Christ  is  far  greater  than  the  sum  of  all  its 
sects  and  creeds  and  committees,  and  the  greater  Church 
is  for  service  and  not  millinery. 

I  may,  of  course,  be  mistaken.  If  it  turns  out  so, 
I'll  confess  it  and  enlist.  But  today  I  think  this  is  the 
lay  of  the  land:  The  Woman's  Christian  Temperance' 
Union  is  Prohibition  with  300,000  noble  women  behind 
it.  The  National  Reform  Bureau  is  Prohibition  with  a 
great  scholar,  statistician  and  gatherer  of  world  news, 
and  25,000  helpers  behind  it.  The  Catholic  Total  Absti- 
nence Society  is  Prohibition  with  half  a  million  Catholics 
behind  it.  The  Prohibition  Party  is  Prohibition  with  200,- 
ooo  uncompromising,  all  or  nothing,  agitators  behind  it. 
The  American  Anti-Saloon  League  is  Prohibition  with 
the  people  behind  it,  and  in  this  land  of  democracy  and 
liberty  the  people  can  rule,  ought  to  rule  and  are  going 
to  rule. 


14  DAY  USE 

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